Three Special Days

The island is fantastic.. as tiny as it is beautiful. Very characteristic, with tiny apartments for rent, just two hotels and lots and lots of tourists. We disembark on the island without having booked anything at all. Two hours roaming the little streets of Panarea looking for an apartment where we could sleep for 2 nights. Obviously, being right around Ferragosto, you can well imagine how hard it was to find anything free. The hotels had sky-high prices — 250€ for one night — and free apartments were out of the question. We had lost hope, so much so that we had decided to catch the last hydrofoil at 7 pm and go back to the mainland…. when a young man offers us a bed in a mini villa inside the island with 2 rooms, 1 bathroom and 2 beds in the living room and kitchen… what an experience. The night in Panarea is stunning.

There's no light on the little winding streets that go down to the harbour, so when you look up at the sky you can see an immensity of stars, thrown into relief precisely by the lack of light. Transport on the island is provided only by 3/4 little electric golf-style cars and nothing else!! What a paradise… even though a healthy walk was quite lovely under a starry sky. The morning after our arrival, we rent one of the many little boats in the small harbour and spend the whole day at sea, between a little cove and a dive in the waters just offshore. Me, Selene, a small anchor to stop whenever and wherever we liked… what more could you ask for?… In the evening, tired, we dine on fish of course… the next morning we decide to leave Panarea and go to Salina, another island of the Aeolian archipelago… very beautiful too, though much, much bigger than Panarea...